


The Perfect Son

by donnarafiki



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hugs, M/M, Minor Character Death, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, death of lucius malfoy, draco plays piano, piano music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 02:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16631399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnarafiki/pseuds/donnarafiki
Summary: However much it hurts, Draco won't allow himself to grieve. He wants to. Craves it more than oxygen, more than life itself. Craves reliving all the good times with his father and crying his eyes out about it.But he still won't. It's a cardinal sin. No one should feel grief for a murderer.Not even his only son.





	The Perfect Son

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't tag major character death bc I don't think Lucius is a major character, but still, I will warn you here that he died (there are no graphic descriptions tho)
> 
> In the notes at the end I included a link to the piano music I imagined Draco would play
> 
> Massive thanks to my beta who filtered out a lot of dumb mistakes. All remaining flaws are mine

Draco was dazed. Not even sure where he was. Pansy… had left, he thought. But he couldn’t be sure. His eyes were open, but nothing got processed. He wasn’t seeing anything, nor getting anything from his other senses for that matter.

There was something… He wasn’t sure. Something big, right at the edge of his mind. But he wasn’t allowed to think about it. He kept telling himself he didn’t know what it was at all even though he did. It was at the centre of his very being, had been since the age of three.

And now it was gone. _He_ was gone.

But he couldn’t grieve. Wouldn’t let himself, as he wandered through the castle. It was wrong to feel that way. Redemption was something he didn’t deserve in the first place, and grieving for a man like that was a grotesque crime no one should ever forgive him for. He couldn’t grieve.

But he couldn’t do anything else either. He should be happy, dancing on the man’s grave, celebrating how the Malfoy fortune that was now officially his, relishing in his freedom now that his father’s shackles were finally and truly gone for good.

But he couldn’t. He felt so hollow. So empty. Like with the loss of his father there was no him left. No Draco Lucius Malfoy anymore, just Draco. And no one knew him as just Draco. He didn’t even know himself like that. He _wasn’t_ himself like that.

Somehow he found his way back to the eight year common room. At least he thought he did, though he wasn’t really aware of the fact. His legs brought him to the piano bench, where he sat down without doing anything. He didn’t know for how long, but it had to be quite some time. After all, Pansy had left, and Pansy never left. Hours must have passed.

He became faintly aware of people around him, though he wasn’t sure where they came from. The faint buzz of conversation swelled. He didn’t like that. He wanted silence. He wanted to grieve. _Merlin_ but he wanted to grieve. Craved it more than oxygen, more than life itself. Craved reliving all the good times with his father and crying his eyes out about it. But he still couldn’t. It was a cardinal sin. No one should grieve for a murderer. Not even his only son.

After a while the buzz around him faded away, only to be replaced by the soft notes of a piano. His own soft notes. He couldn’t cry, but his fingers could play and that almost sounded the same. At first he wasn’t even sure what he was playing, but once he did he couldn’t help but smile. His father had hated his love for muggle piano music. The man had hated many parts of him, in fact Lucius hated every part of Draco that differed from himself.

Playing an homage to the man on an instrument he detested. Depressing, yet also containing just a tiny rebellion. Draco thought it was rather fitting, and sped up his notes just a bit while he closed his eyes. _Merlin_ , but his father had been one hell of a man. Not in a good way most of the time, but that didn’t mean Draco wouldn’t miss him. Still, he wouldn’t grieve.

He had said goodbye to his father many months ago. Not just literally, at his trial, but in his own head. With the morals of the Malfoy patriarch still in his bones he could never be deserving of the redemption he’d been offered. It was the first thing he’d tried to change about himself, even though he had been far from successful.

He had to keep trying though. Lucius Malfoy had gotten a second chance after the first war and he’d blown it to pieces. Draco desperately didn’t want to make the same mistake, no matter how much he _still_ looked up to his father. He wasn’t sure if he could ever stop doing that. But maybe he should try. Try and let his father go. Allow him to fade into his past, along with the rest of his many mistakes.

It was that thought that finally, forced out some of the tears he’d been holding back. His own father. A _mistake_. Factually, it made sense, but in his heart it just felt so wrong. In his heart he just wanted to go back in time, make the war go away, and bury himself in his father’s arms. A ridiculous thing to long for as he’d never done that in real life. Malfoys did not cuddle. Especially not his father.

But he still wanted to.

He smiled at the stupidity of his own wishes. He wanted to grieve, he wanted to be hugged by a man who was dead, he wanted to erase all of his father’s mistakes and still worship him like he’d done all his life. Each item on that list was equally impossible.

Except…

Except the hug suddenly was there. He couldn’t feel the piano keys under his fingers, but he could feel the strong arms around his waist, could hear the steady breathing next to his ear as if the warm body next to him was fighting his own tears. Which was stupid. Draco already hated himself for allowing a few tears to slip, who else would be foolish enough to cry about a man like his father?

“I’m so sorry Draco.” Draco opened his eyes, his hands suddenly shaking too much to continue playing. Of course he’d known it was Harry sitting next to him, but to hear his voice… To really _know_ that it was him, that was something else.

His field of vision was blurry from tears, and he _hated_ himself for it. Hated missing the man who had made his life hell, hated craving Harry’s touch, hated not being in control of his own emotions, hated feeling so useless and weak and _stupid_.

“Don’t be.” At least his voice was just as harsh and steady as he wanted it to be, even if it was a bit soft from disuse. “No one should miss that man. He didn’t deserve to live.”

“ _Draco_.” Harry sounded baffled, _shocked_ , that he could say such things about his own father. That he could voice the truth about him. Draco didn’t blame him. He hadn’t exactly proven himself to be a truthful person in the past. “He was your _father_.”

“And he was a horrible man.” There was a smile on his face again, though this one was far from nostalgic. “If anyone deserved to die in Azkaban it was him.”

He let out a humourless chuckle as he imagined his father’s outrage at that statement. Fucking prick was always banging on about family pride without ever doing anything for his family worth being proud of. “He was a horrid father.” Draco said, immediately hearing the hypocrisy in that statement. As if he’d ever tried to be a hair better than his old man. “And I was a horrid son.”

“That is not true.” Chapped lips pressed against his cheek, the gesture somehow drawing Draco into Harry’s lap, deeper into his arms. “You loved your father, Draco. I could see that from the start, and I was awfully jealous of it. And I could see he loved you back.”

“Bullshit.” Suddenly Draco was out of Harry’s arms, across the room, angry eyes staring out the window as if the snow outside had personally murdered his family. In some ways it had. After all, the cold was responsible for his father’s fatal pneumonia. “All my father ever showed me was disappointment. I could never be the perfect mini him that he wanted me to be. He was unhappy in his own life, always trying to achieve perfection he could never reach and he took that out on me. He never loved me because he never loved himself and that is a horrible way to treat a child.”

He only realized how true his own words were as they spilled from his lips. “And I was always testing him, always mimmicking the parts of him that he hated about himself to point out his imperfections. I was a cruel child to a man who was only trying to live up to the impossible expectations around him. It would have made no sense for him to love me.”

“You are not cruel, Draco.” Harry tried to touch his shoulder but Draco flinched away, disgusted by himself. The stupid Gryffindor lie almost made him gag. “You’re _not_. It’s cruel forcing your child to be a miniature version of yourself. But I really do think he loved you in some sense. I think every parent does.”

“Well then he had a terrible way of showing it.” Draco crossed his arms, trying to suppress the shiver attempting to rip him apart. “Because I _tried_ , Harry. All joking aside I fucking tried to be everything he wanted me to be but it was never good enough and now he’s _dead_.” Somewhere amidst his rant he’d started crying again. “Now he’s dead and I don’t even know why I miss him.”

“Because he’s your father, Draco.” Harry slowly pulled him back into his arms, and this time Draco didn’t flinch away. He barely had the energy left to stay on his own feet. All of the sudden he was so tired it almost broke him. “Even I miss my father and I never even met him.”

“But your father was a good man. Mine was not.” Draco took a deep, shaky breath, trying to push the thought of his father out of his mind. The longer he thought of him, the closer he came to feeling grief. He didn’t want to feel grief. “Bad people don’t deserve grief.”

Harry pulled him impossibly close when he said that, which was a good thing because Draco didn’t trust his own legs anymore. “Maybe Lucius the death eater doesn’t deserve grief, but Lucius your father does. No matter how horrible he was. You’re allowed to miss him.”

“I can’t.” His voice was out of his control too now, no louder than a broken whisper. “I can’t, Harry. I can’t fall apart again.”

“You can.” Harry whispered, covering his neck with kisses. “You can because I promise you I will put you back together. You’re not alone in this, Draco.”

_Please don’t tell me it’s okay to miss him_. Draco tried to say, but all that came out was a broken sob. So he took a shaky breath and tried again, already feeling himself slowly fall apart. “Please don’t tell me it’s okay to miss him. I don’t want to become a horrible person again.”

“You won’t be, Draco. I promise.” Harry kissed his temple. “And maybe for now you shouldn’t do anything. You’ve been awake for almost two days, love. I was scared you’d never snap out of that state you were in. That you’d never allow yourself to feel again.”

“I’m sorry.” It was an almost automated response as he heard the pain in Harry’s voice. Draco was allowed to be in pain, but his boyfriend was not. Under no circumstance. “I didn’t mean for you to worry.”

“I’ll always worry about you when you get like this Draco.” Harry pulled back slightly, though his green eyes refused to come back into focus. Nothing about Draco was working, and he hated himself for it. “Please come to bed with me.”

Draco didn’t know if he nodded. He just knew he followed Harry’s lead and several minutes later he was surrounded by warmth. Warmth his father would never feel again because he was in the ground somewhere on a godforsaken island, not even a tombstone in place. Prisoners did not leave Azkaban until the end of their sentence, dead or not. Lucius Malfoy might never have a proper grave.

“I miss him.” He muttered against Harry’s collarbone as he slowly drifted off to sleep. “I’m so sorry I miss him.”

“Don’t be. You’re allowed to miss him, Draco.” Harry pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Now sleep, love. Escape for a bit.”

And two deep breaths later, he did exactly that. Buried in Harry’s arms, he slept for hours, blissfully lacking any dreams. Forgetting his grief, his father, his second chance. All he knew were the strong arms around him, and the steadily rising and falling chest under his ear. And for a few hours, things didn’t hurt at much as they did before.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [this is the song I imagined Draco would play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFJ7kDva7JE)
> 
> Please consider leaving kudos or a comment if you liked reading this<3


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